Stile Antico‘s latest album – The Golden Renaissance: Palestrina – has won one of the Preis der Deutschen Schallplatten Kritik Annual Awards 2025 in Germany. The jury decides on ten Annual Awards, recognising the best releases of the past year.This what they had to say about the album:
“There are moments in history when the wealth of future generations seems to hang on a single, fragile thread. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina spun one of these precious threads in his time, almost single-handedly saving the world of sacred vocal music – or so the myth goes. At a time of schism in the Church, his Missa Papae Marcelli demonstrated that polyphony need not be incomprehensible, nor vocal complexity confusing. He created such a convincing model of compositional balance, that later generations would proclaim him the saviour of church music on the basis of this work alone.
While the truth is a more nuanced business, it is fair to say that Palestrina’s music helped complex polyphony, the subject of theological controversy, to gain acceptance and splendour. Along the way, his genre had shaped its own compositional style: the Stile Antico. The British vocal ensemble of the same name sings this work of genius with flawless diction, of course, and with a passionate closeness to the text, without restraint, organic, supple. “
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